growth and change
by Ten-Faced
Summary: Do the environments we grow up in determine us, and our futures? Not in her case, she hopes. Akemi-centric. Akemi/Akai, implied one-sided Bourbon/Akemi.


_Akemi_, her mother calls, and Akemi the young girl, Akemi who is four-or-five or maybe six, she goes up to her mother, who hugs her and lets her sit in her lap. She remembers breathing in, and smelling her mother's scent, the smell only she had, no one else. That scent has escaped her memories now, but she knows it was a good one, one she could smell forever and never be sick of.

_Akemi, this is Tooru._

And then she was looking at an older boy, one who sat in his seat all by himself, back straight and tanned face serious, dressed in all black.

With solemn eyes, she remembers him, still with black hair then, he held out his hand for her to shake.

She shook it with a smile. New friends!

She really was young then.

**~Akemi~**

Her memories of later years are clearer. She remembers more of Tooru, who is still four years older than her and knows more, does more, says more, and she's a bit jealous because he gets a lot of attention from mommy and daddy when he's visiting.

_Shiho_, she complains to the baby with serious gray eyes who is her little sister, who lies in her pretty cradle with her soft toys. _You love me more than Tooru, right?_

The baby with pretty hair like English tea – why couldn't she have hair like that?! – looked at her, and very seriously said, _Buh-buh_.

**~Akemi~**

And that's pretty much it. A few encounters in childhood, and then her parents are dead and gone, leaving Shiho and her alone.

Akemi takes charge, or tries to, and in the years that pass with all their memories and experiences, she forgets all about Tooru.

It isn't until she meets Dai and falls in love with the man she knows is different, is better than the black-clothed people she has been with her entire life that she meets Tooru again.

Pardon. She meant _Bourbon_. Their meeting is one of chance, where it's an encounter in a restaurant owned by the Organization, where everyone is one of the Crows.

_So you're Rye,_ the still-tanned, now-bleached hair is a good look on him. Women would swoon at the jawline, the muscled chest visible even through the shirt and the slight opening of the jacket, and the eyes that twinkle with boyish mischief and love of challenge. _Name's Bourbon. _He doesn't offer a hand to shake, but that is expected.

Dai tips his head slightly, ever the cool guy, in reply, hand still firm on Akemi's arm._ I've heard of you_.

Tooru – Bourbon – walks out, then, passing by them with a slight smirk on his face and a thought bouncing in his eyes, and they sit down for a dinner date.

_So he's the reason why I couldn't be named for my favorite drink_, Dai mutters as he pours himself the alcohol in a glass with a large lump of ice.

Akemi is sipping at sherry with wistfulness, and she looks up.

He says nothing, though, but there's a look in his heavily shadowed eyes that could rival Tooru's in its thoughtfulness, and she gets the feeling its processing thoughts just as fast.

Akemi gets more than that feeling, though. She gets the feeling that her boyfriend and her childhood acquaintance has something more going on in between them, like an intricate web of hate or rivalry. Seems like they're natural archenemies.

She tells her sister later, when it's obvious the two are competing for everything.

Her stoic younger sister smiles half-heartedly, and it's clear she's not interested in men. Hence, a round of 'you-need-a-boyfriend' starts again, the familiar arguments slipping out again.

**~Akemi~**

Akemi is surprised when Shiho – Shiho, not Sherry – is the one to bring her the latest news in the organization for once, and the news she brings is the one about how Bourbon has accused Rye of being a traitor.

_No proof,_ Shiho shrugs in her lab coat, and Akemi gets a pang in her heart at the sight of her sister who is important to the Organization, yes, but not enough to ensure that she won't be some disposable thing, and the thought to leave is nagging at her again. _Your boyfriend's not a traitor._

Yes, Dai is safe. He seems annoyed at the accusations Bourbon has thrown him, but nothing has been made official, and no one has a problem yet.

_It's like he's choosing the lies that are the furthest from the truth,_ he mutters as he breathes in the smoke from his lit cigarette.

She has her suspicions about that truth, but she just hugs his arm and takes in his silent warmth and his solidness.

**~Akemi~**

Bourbon comes to talk to her, claiming it's for the sake of old times and for her parents, but he's not talking about that at all, instead he's demanding about Dai and what she knows and how he's some kind of mole, a traitor, and she's screaming in denial, and there's tears running down her face at one point, and god he just won't shut up with his lies and nononononononononononononono !

_Come on, Akemi_, and Dai is there, taking her hand and taking her away, and she's crying again.

He hands her a plain handkerchief and mutters about a stupid woman who cries in the dark and pretends to be stronger than she is.

Bourbon comes again, later, when 'Rye' isn't there, and he's the sheepish schoolboy who's done something wrong and knows it, apologizing for his stupidity and his carelessness. _I still have problems with that_, he laughs nervously. He looks more youthful now than back when he was an actual boy. Odd how things work.

She accepts the apology with a smile, but decides to be wary of him. Her instincts prove to be correct when he tells her that she can come to him for anything if Dai really isn't what he seems.

_No_, she thinks as she waves to him from her door. _He really is who he seems._

**~Akemi~**

She never sees Bourbon again, even when it's revealed that Dai wasn't Dai but an agent of the FBI, a man named Shuichi Akai. Too busy celebrating? She guesses as she mopes. Dai is free. She is not, and neither is Shiho.

Then Akemi gets an offer of a lifetime, and she seizes that chance of being normal, having Shiho out of there, and being Dai's actual girlfriend this time, not just some kind of a thread to her corrupt organization.

_So there, Bourbon,_ she thinks, satisfied at last as she sends Akai her message. _In the end, you lose._

**~Tooru~**

Bourbon claims it's for investigations, but in reality, he has no idea what this is as he lights a candle in the sipping yard where she was supposed to have died. Standing around, he looks to the sky, where few stars twinkle, and then back down to the small, weak light that will extinguish itself soon.

If it is a tribute, it is a poor one, but he has never been good at such memorials.

_Good-bye, Akemi,_ he sighs, and parts with yet another ghost of his past.

* * *

That is _not_ my head canon, but I wrote it anyways. One day, I shall write a fic that actually shows my headcanon, for once.


End file.
